The Lone Dalek
by carlgluftgmail.com
Summary: The War Doctor tracks the Daleks to a library planet in AD 5009
1. Chapter 1

The Lone Dalek

By Gerard Luft

Chapter One

A wheezing and groaning sound filled the middle of a massive room filled with book shelves. A few books fell from their shelves, and a sudden wind blew stacks of paper about. Slowly a tall blue box with a light atop it materialized. The door opened and am old bearded man dressed in a worn leather coat and herring bone scarf emerged from it.

"The Library!" He exclaimed as his water green eyes set in his wrinkled face gazed about. "A whole world filled with books. How I wish I could have visited it in better times."

"You came at the perfect time," said a man in Black brandishing a large pistol. He raised up his left arm revealing a wide leather bracelet on it. "You came when I was here."

"Good grief! A Time Agent. I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have time to deal with you. I'm terribly busy."

"Time Lord TTC Capsule stuck in the form of an Earth Police Box, circa AD 1950? I've got a warrant for your arrest, Doctor. It is Doctor, isn't it?"

"No more," growled the old man.

"You're wanted for war crimes."

"You've got the wrong Time Lord. I've done everything in my power to reduce collateral damage in my battles with the Daleks."

"Tell it to the Shadow Proclamation. Move that way."

The Time Agent led the Doctor through a door into a series of office. They reached a door which the Doctor was going to enter, but the agent said, "Stop there! Your ammo belt, please."

The Doctor removed his leather coat, revealing a worn white shirt and equally worn waistcoat. A bandolier crossed his chest, empty save for a red tipped, metal wand. He slowly removed it and handed it to the agent.

The agent tossed the ammo belt upon a nearby desk and motioned the Doctor into the next office. Except for a desk and chair, it was stripped bare, save for a desk and chair.

"With all I've heard of you," said the agent, "I really thought you'd put up more of a fight."

With that, he closed the door and locked it.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Ametuer," chuckled the Doctor as he went over to the desk and opened it's drawers. The desk, like the room was stripped bare. "Ah ha!"

He pulled a drawer all the way out and say it atop the desk. With hands much stronger than they looked, he ripped a bracket off the drawer bottom, bent it straight, and went back over to the door. Carefully he ran it down the seam in the sliding door until it opened up.

He put his bandolier and coat back on, and went back to the section of the Library he arrived at. As the door of the outer office opened, he quickly jumped back, and took cover. A battle was reading in the Library. Four people in space suits armed with projectile rifles were carefully avoiding the thrashing form of a sentence reptile with wings and a bulbous head.

"Careful, Mark," said a woman, "Don't hurt it. You know it's terrified."

"Yes, I know, Deb," said Mark as he carefully aimed his rifle. "Watch out, Ruel!"

Another spacesuited figure barely dodged the monsters tail. Then Mark fired. The projectile whizzed through the air, and with a bright light, the monster disappeared.

"Brigit, who's that?" Asked Mark.

The fourth figure turned around to see the Doctor in the doorway.

"Who're you?" Asked Brigit.

"No one," the old man growled. "The more pertinent question is, what was that?"

"Your usual, run-of-the-mill Jabberwocky," said Mark.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"I wish it was just a joke."

"The Jabberwocky is a fictional creation of Lewis Carroll."

"That's what everyone is turning into."

"Jabberwockys?" Asked the old man incredulously.

"No," said Mark. "Fictional creatures. The Jabberwocky was just one of them."

"We've got a Beowulf, Balrog, Frankenstein monster, Elder Thing…" rattled off Deb.

"Are you trying to say that the people in the Library are turning into fictional monsters?" Asked the Doctor, interrupting Deb.

"Where have you been?" Asked Ruel.

"The planet Sanitary, 2765, if you must know," answered the Doctor. "What's causing this?"

"Some kind of strange metagenetic radiation that appeared in the Library about one local month ago," explained Brigit. "We've have some anti-radiation drugs. We need to give you some."

"I don't need it," said the Doctor. "My physiology is quite resistant to metagenetic affects. Can't you do something for those already affected instead of disintegrating them?"

"Disintegrate?" Asked Mark. "Oh! No, no. We shoot it with a tranquilizer and teleport beacon dart."

"Thanks to the Time Agency," said Ruel, "we have a fleet of ships in orbit we can teleport them up to. We're treating them with anti-radiation drugs, but it's too soon to see if they're effective."

"I had a run in with one of your Time Agents," said the Doctor.

"You're not a criminal, are you?" Asked Mark.

"I try not to be."

"Perhaps we should contact the Agency."

"Please don't do that. I can help you. We have a common enemy here, you see."

"Really? Who? What's turning out people into monsters?" asked Brigit.

"The same Enemy I've tracked through time and space," said the Doctor. "The Daleks."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"We need to find the source of this radiation," said the Doctor as he waved the red tipped wand from his ammo belt around.

"The radiation blankets the entire planet," explained Mark. "Even shipboard sensors and Time Agent vortex manipulators can't nail it down."

"I've got something better than that," said the Doctor as he headed towards the Police Box.

"Are you sure you don't want to take some of the anti radiation drugs?" asked Deb. 'We wouldn't want you to turn into a monster.'

"Too late for that," said the Doctor entering the Police Box.

The four others followed him into the Police Box and were shocked to find an enormous circular room inside. The walls were aglow with a series of odd, round impressions – sunken lights, perhaps – and rough stone pillars arched overhead to support the roof. A raised dais housed what looked like a control panel, of sorts – although the controls in question appeared to be patched up and cobbled together from scavenged components that had been made to fit. Nests of cables dropped from the ceiling.

"It's bigger on the inside!" Cried Brigit.

"Much better than a Vortex Manipulator," says the Doctor as he through some switched and studied some strange figures on a flat screen monitor attached to a great glass column in the center of the console.

"Is this some kind of a new Time Agency craft?" Asked Mark.

"Hardly," muttered the Doctor. An overlay of the section of the Library appeared over there symbols on the screen. He pulled out his wand and listened to it's whine as he held it to his ear. Turning about, he headed towards the Police Box doors. "I don't take my TARDIS into battles with me, so we'll have to get down there the old fashioned way: by the lift. Come along!"

As they left the TARDIS Mark asked, "If We're going into battle, shouldn't we get some real guns?"

"God, no!" Explained the Doctor as they entered the nearest lift. "You can't defeat Daleks with guns. I never use them."

"But what about that?" Asked Brigit indicating the wand in his hand.

"That's my screwdriver. Come along now."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The Doctor led the four scientists through the service tunnels beneath the Library for what seemed like hours. His screwdriver made an odd whine. Lifting to his ear, he said, "The source of the radiation is just up ahead."

They entered a massive space. Odd, alien electronics were assemble in the middle of it. Inside the machinery was an old, bearded man, attached to it by multiple cables.

"That's the Librarian!" Explained Mark.

"it looks like a combination of a Dalek controller and fictional generator," mussed the Doctor as he waved his screwdriver around the cables connecting it to the Librarian.

"A fictional generator?" Asked Ruel. "Is that what's turning people into monsters?"

"I'm afraid it is," said the Doctor as he carefully removed one of the cables from the Librarian.

"Have you seen one of these before?" Asked Deb.

"I think so. It was in my previous life though. I had a dreadful problem with amnesia and altered timelines back then, so the memory of it is a bit unreliable. We need to release this poor chap from it first. Give me a hand with him, please."

As the four scientists joined the Doctor, a terrible, mechanical voice screeched, "Move away from the Controller, or you will be exterminated!"

A domed, grey machine with an bulbous eyestalk, gun barrel and, what to all the humans looked like a toilet plunger, glided into the chamber.

"I don't think you'd take the chance of hitting your Controller here by opening fire," said the Doctor. "Where's the rest of you?"

"The simplicity of this mission requires only one Dalek."

"Typical Dalek hubris!" Exclaimed the Doctor.

"There's only one of them?" Asked Mark.

"All you need is one Dalek in order to take over a world," explained the Doctor. "But that is because you weren't expecting me to show up."

With sudden recognition, the Dalek backed away, screaming, "You are the Predator!"

"That's a hell of a name!" said Deb.

"You will be exterminated!"

"The Librarian's free!" Cried Brigit.

"Give me a gun!" Ordered the Doctor.

Instinctively, Mark tossed him his gun. "There's no way that dart can penetrate that armor."

"No," said the Doctor as he raised up the rifle, and ran his screwdriver over it, "but I know what will. Now, run!"

Half carrying the Librarian, the survey team ran as fast as they could back towards the lift. The room filled with the light of dozens of teleporter beams. Tossing the rifle aside, the Doctor ran, carefully wearing his way through the fictional monsters that were appearing around him.

The sounds of Dalek gun fire and monstrous roars filled the corridors as they ran back to the lift. The Doctor joined them only a few seconds after they reached the lift. Moments later, they were all assembled before the TARDIS.

"I reversed the polarity of your teleport darts," explained the Doctor," and beamed in as many monsters as I had enough ammo for. The Dalek and it's internal machine didn't stand a chance.

"With the radiation gone, you'll find your patients will slowly be transformed into their old selves. The metagenetic transformation wasn't yet complete, and human bio-data is very good at setting things right."

"Why was it turning people into monsters?" Asked Mark.

"It was weaponizing humans," explained the Doctor as he unlocked the TARDIS door. "The Daleks would have used them as troops in their endless war with my people. "I must be going. We won a victory, the War goes one. "

"Please let me go with you," said Brigit. "I want to help you fight these Daleks."

"You can't," said the Doctor as he stopped in the TARDIS doorway. "I travel alone, now. This War is mine, not yours."

"Thank you," said Mark.

With a flash of a smile on his weathered, bearded face, the Doctor entered the TARDIS. With a wheezing and groaning sound the TARDIS faded away.

The End.


End file.
